I had to install a hood pad on a SI 330 we had at the shop, but first we had to do something about the hood pad stays that were missing on this car.

Francois had a pair of these aluminum stays in his stash of spare parts. One of them was a perfect fit, but the other one needed some cutting and bending to fit this hood.

These aluminum pieces have a very specific profile and are not easily copied so we were lucky to have a set to modify. It looks like the 250GTE Hood stays have a deeper bend on the ends, while this SI 330 had a shallower bend in the tab.

I carefully measured, cut, and bent the piece that needed fitting, substituting a rag for the soon to be installed hood pad to get the clearance right.

I drilled new holes in the newly cut and bent ends and counter sunk the holes like the other original piece. I also shaped the ends to match the other stay.

The Hood Pad came from HVL in the Netherlands.  Henk has been supplying accurate leather and interior materials for Ferraris for many years, and really works hard at providing us with some nice stuff. I’ve tried other hood pads supplied to me from the States, but so far, HVL has the most correct mylar material used on 330s and 365s. He also has the patterns for either a 330 or a 365 hood pad.  It’s a bit more work and money to have this part shipped from the Netherlands, but when I don’t have to do anything but install it on a car, it’s well worth it!

After sanding and polishing the hood pad stays, I installed them over the newly installed hood pad. With all pieces correctly plated, polished, and installed, this hood is ready to go back on the car.

Annual Tomyang.net Pledge Drive

I want to thank everyone in advance for spending a few moments to contribute to this year’s pledge drive. If you haven’t contributed yet, there’s only a couple of weeks left. I only ask for contributions one time a year, but your donations go towards supporting this website and the Vintage Ferrari community that we have in this little corner of the Internet. I’ve resisted running a lot of advertising on this site, and charging for its use because I believe it’s the free sharing of information that strengthens the hobby and enjoyment of these cars. Your donations support this ideal for everyone! Thank you.

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

A black SII 330 we’ve had at the shop recently changed hands. I met the potential buyer one day a few weeks ago for a test drive. He liked the freshly rebuilt engine, and agreed with me that it was a well sorted car.

I may have spoken too quickly because as soon as we pulled back into the parking lot, I saw a fine spray of coolant coming out of the radiator! Even though the radiator core had recently been replaced, a small pinhole leak had developed along one of the seams of the radiator. Luckily, the owner was not discouraged with this development and agreed to buy the car.

My job today was was to pull the radiator and have the pinhole leak soldered up, but first, the hood had to be removed.

With the radiator out, I had to remove the condenser to make soldering and pressure testing the radiator easier for my radiator shop.

Speaking of radiators, the Daytona radiator we had re-cored a couple of weeks ago was installed and filled with coolant. Another job out the door at Francois’ shop!

Annual Tomyang.net Pledge Drive

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. I only ask once a year for your support that pays for the server, hosting, and work I put into maintaining this website throughout the year. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

After completing the inspection for the Ferrari Classique program with Michael’s 330 America, I was all ready to send the car back to his house for winter storage, but Michael had other plans.

The carburetors on his 330 America have never been great. Through the years, the throttle shafts have slowly developed some play, causing small vacuum leaks which affected the tuning. Getting the carbs to run right at certain temperatures would always be a compromise. Michael decided to go ahead and pull the trigger and have Pierce Manifold work their magic on his carbs this winter, so the first job was to pull the carbs off this 330.

It will be the first set of carbs I will send to Mike Pierce for his rebuild service, and I hope these carbs turn out well. I can see evidence of previous work done on these carbs, and I hope Mike can straighten them all out!

The PF Cab is going to need a little more work before we receive a Classique Red Book. Luckily, they are only minor issues and the big items, like serial numbers, internal numbers, and original parts passed scrutiny. The only two items I needed to correct is an original style exhaust, and a generator. I ordered an original style Abarth exhaust from Timevalve in Florida, and it should be completed in a month or so. Mike York of Timevalve worked very closely with long time Ferrari Restorer Greg Jones to replicate the original Abarth Exhausts and makes them in any configuration I need. When the exhaust comes in, I’ll install it, photograph it, and send it to the Classique department for review and approval. The same will go with the generator when I install it on the car.

Annual Tomyang.net Pledge Drive

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. I only ask once a year for your support that pays for the server, hosting, and work I put into maintaining this website throughout the year. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

I had an opportunity this week to meet Emilliano Torkar of the Ferrari Classique Department from Maranello, Italy. The Collector Car Garage arranged for Mr. Torkar to come to NY to certify a few Ferraris, and I was invited to bring some of my client’s Ferraris to be certified.

Ferrari Classique Certification is a program from the Ferrari Factory that researches the cars and certifies that they are “As Built” by the factory by examining many items on the car from original equipment, to correlating internal numbers, chassis numbers, engine numbers, and assembly numbers with records held by the factory. When a car passes the tests by  Classique Department it gets a bound book showing it has been  “certified.” There are as many detractors of this service as there are supporters for a host of reasons that span back to the very beginning of Ferrari, but the basic principle is good to certify the authenticity of a car.

Having Mr. Torkar personally come to NY to inspect a few Ferraris was an opportunity I wasn’t going pass up. Normally, Classique Certification involves submitting an application, attaching numerous photos, and waiting for a response from the Factory. The Ferrari Dealership network can assist in this process, but the cars have to be transported to the Dealer, scheduled for photography, inspection, and submission of the application. All of these inspections end up at Mr. Torkar’s inbox waiting for his inspection and approval. Having him personally inspect my customer’s cars gave me instant notification on the outcome of the inspection. We discussed any concerns Emilliano had in real time, and what he wanted to rectify to prevent any of these cars from failing certification. There is nothing better than a personal connection with this process.

There was a lot of work to be done to show some of the internal numbers Mr. Tokar needed to certify the cars. The 250PF Cabriolet and 330 America I brought have a very well hidden transmission stamping that can only be accessed by removing the transmission tunnel. Unfortunately, the seats and some of the interior has to be removed first before removal of the transmission cover.

As I worked on exposing the transmissions on the PF Cab and 330 America, Emilliano worked on a third car I brought down, a 330GTS. Luckily, the later cars have numbers that are much more accessible and required less disassembly.

Emilliano had his computer and database set up to see if the numbers matched up. I tried not to pry, but I could only imagine the wealth of data on his laptop! During breaks, he showed me rare scanned documents he’s collected through the years at Ferrari. Did you know there is a Factory owner’s manual for a 500 Mondial!?

There was plenty of room to work at CCG, but next time, I’ll bring more tools. It’s always tough to work outside your normal shop because inevitably there will be a special tool you have in your shop that you wish you had brought!

Michael’s 330 America showed off her transmission internal number, and it correlated with the Factory records. It looks like the 330 America will pass, along with the 330GTS. I have a little work to do on the 250PF Coupe, but it’s minor and should pass once these requests are met.

While on the topic of Classique Certification, I want to make distinction. When a car is certified by the Factory, it means it is equipped as it left the factory. It does not mean you can take a “Certified” Ferrari and expect to win a Concours! Emilliano is not inspecting the details of the car, but is making sure the general equipment as shown on the build sheets is correct and the internal numbers on the gearbox, rear differential, and engine are as they were stamped when the car was built. They have also certified cars with non matching engines, so long as the correct type of engine was installed. There are some grey areas on the certification process, and I’ll leave it to others to debate, but I do know that many buyers demand a car come with Factory Certification, so having the “Red Book” can’t hurt the value of a car.

Annual Tomyang.net Pledge Drive

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. I only ask once a year for your support that pays for the server, hosting, and work I put into maintaining this website throughout the year. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:Tomyang.net LLCP.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

It’s funny how we will get a run of the same model Ferrari at the shop for a couple of months, and right now it seems to be Daytonas.

The red one with the white nose had an electrical issue that was causing the cooling fans and horns to stop working. I listened to the owner tell me the problem and tried to use the story as clues to the source of the problem. He told me both items stopped working about the same time, and actually fixed themselves one warm day in the summer but stopped working shortly thereafter. Very rarely does a problem with a car “fix itself” so I kept listening. The horn and fan circuits are on separate fuses, so they may or may not have be related, but I made a note to myself.

I started by checking the easiest thing first which was the fuses. Nothing was blown, and the fuse junctions were in decent shape without any diconnections or signs of overheating. I grounded out the temperature sender circuit and nothing happened, so I turned my focus to the power feed to the fans. As I probed the fuse block, I noticed a flicker in the test light as I tried the circuit. Aha!

This car had a replacement fuse junction block installed and as I probed the associated circuits, there was an intermittent fault. On closer inspection I found a cold solder joint at a bridge bar in the fuse block. With vibration and heat, this cold solder joint eventually cracked and caused the cooling fans AND the horn to stop working! A simple re-soldering of the bridge bar was done and we were back in business. Anything that would prevent me from chasing down further into an electrical system is a good for me. I love easy fixes!

The light blue Daytona needed a new radiator core and it’s back from the radiator shop with a new core ready for paint and re-installation.

A third Daytona will be at the shop when I get these two out when we will be reinstalling a Gearbox after we replaced some seals and some internal parts. Three Daytonas in a month, that’s a lot of Daytonas!

With so many Daytonas in the shop, that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about the 330s! Yale’s engine installed and ready for break in and driving, but we found a lot of smoke the last time we started the car. Instead of coming from the newly rebuilt engine, we found the source of the smoke was coming from all the oil in the exhaust system when the engine first blew! Francois and I have been trying to find a way to get all the oil out of the mufflers and baffles inside the length of the exhaust. Besides the environmental disposal of the solvent to wash this oil out, anything we use will collect in the internal insulation and smoke when the hot exhaust heats it up.

For starters, we set the oil filled exhaust system on end to drain for a few days. It’s been a little warm in the Northeast so the oil is flowing, but I would have preferred 70s-80s than 40s-50s. I was amazed how much oil drained out of the system already, but we have some more to go!

Annual Tomyang.net Pledge Drive

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. I only ask once a year for your support that pays for the server, hosting, and work I put into maintaining this website throughout the year. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:Tomyang.net LLCP.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

It’s that time for the Annual Pledge Drive, but here’s a review of the happenings you followed on Tomyang.net this last year.

The year always seems to begin with a trip to Palm Beach to attend the Cavallino Classic, celebrating Ferrari and track events, driving tours, and a car show of some of the best Ferraris in the world. This year I was involved with showing a few cars, and to say it was hectic getting all the cars ready, detailed, shipped, and set in place in time to be judged, would be an understatement!

Back at the shop, the usual line of engine work was completed. This engine was just installed a couple of weeks ago, but was patiently waiting for some parts to arrive earlier this year.

We seemed to have a run of 330s in the shop this year, and this one came in for brakes and an engine detailing. It was a lot of work stripping the brake system, rebuilding it, and fixing and correcting issues we found on the car. You were able to follow all the work throughout this year.

A third (or was that fourth?) 330 came into the shop this Spring for a clutch and brake job. Eventually, the owner decided to have our upholsterer re-do the leather in the interior. This is another project very close to going home that you were able to follow on this website.

On the side, I’ve been learning how to rebuild Brake boosters all year. It all started with the MasterVac systems, but I’ve also been learning how to build the Bendix systems found on the 250 Ferraris. We’re losing a lot of old timers to retirement, and their skills are going with them. I feel like it’s a race against time to learn their tricks and techniques before it’s too late to ask them for help. Every year I have at least two or three cars in my shop that require this kind of work, but if the current rebuilders close their shops, we’ll have no one to turn to. I’ve taken upon myself to spend the time to learn, spending money on flights and taking time off.  I just hope I learn enough before it’s too late!

The month of May brought in my annual car show I host with Radcliffe Motorcars in Maryland. As usual, this show brought out some spectacular cars and lots real car guys! We’ll be doing it again this year, so look to this website for more details!

Work continued at the shop making old parts new again!

I managed to find time to join my Chump Car Team for a few days of race laps around Watkin’s Glen. I hope to do more for 2016!

We may be restoring old Ferraris, but we also service a lot of Ferraris for regular use. One upgrade I’ve been doing a lot of this year was the change over to high-torque starters from the original Marelli units. The old ones will go in a box to save with the car, but the more dependable and efficient modern starter does the day to day work.

We had a massive gathering of GTEs in Monterey this year and I sent my 330 America out there to join in the fun. Tom Wilson revealed his car for the first time in many years along with a couple of other freshly restored cars. I have to say, the 250GTE crowd really has a sense of community, and I believe it’s due to the efforts of Tom Wilson and David Wheeler. I’m glad to be a part of the GTE Registry and look forward to future events. You don’t have to be an owner of a GTE to participate, and I think the information and support of this Registry can help anyone with a Vintage Ferrari. Contact David Wheeler for more information about subscribing to the newsletter, and check out Ferrari250GTE.com

Monterey week was also the time for my Annual Cocktail party I host at Quail Lodge on Thursday night before the big shows. This party has grown over the years and I’m proud to have a meeting place for owners, restorers, and enthusiasts to meet and talk about our favorite subjects. This year’s gathering was made extra special because of all the GTE owners that were in town from all over the world!

Back at the shop, assembly began on a 275GTS that Francois and I are doing a full restoration. This car will be a large part of 2016 as I hope to be showing her publicly when she’s done!

I will always make time for a Ferrari gathering, and Michael Greenspan wanted to celebrate his winning of a Platinum Preservation Award at the FCA National show that we brought home from Monererey! It was nice Fall day in Connecticut when fans of tomyang.net and the Northeast Ferrari Club members came out for nice lunch provided by the Greenspans. Good friends, food, and conversation, what’s not to like?

A leaking fuel tank was resolved by getting a used one from my friend and fellow mechanic Zac Dugger in CA. The challenges of working on these old cars is not necessarily the work, but knowing the resources!

The Year ended in a new project with the Keno Brothers. I’m proud to be a part of a new auction that had its debut in NYC in November. We have our lessons to learn from our first auction, but I look forward to helping them grow this project into something great. Look for us in Hershey next June!

I want to take this moment and thank all my friends in the Vintage Ferrari business that help me throughout the year. I couldn’t succeed without their help and support. The help is mutual, and I wouldn’t think twice of doing the same for my colleagues. In turn, I also try my best to help all the owners who reach out looking for assistance on their own cars or need a little advice to help their personal mechanic get over a particular problem. I believe in good karma, and good things usually come back from good deeds.

This pledge drive is part of your help to support this community. We all can contribute to the greater good and find our way to keep this place strong and dependable. I often tell people running this website takes an inordinately large amount of time, but I enjoy sharing my car adventures with everyone watching my career/hobby unfold. Despite the love of this site, there are mechanics that operate in the background that many of you do not see that keeps this site running. Inevitably, problems arise at the worst times, and I find I have to drop what I’m doing to fix it. It’s times like these when I think of the donations I receive from the pledge drive that reminds me that people appreciate my work, and I want to continue to provide a service that largely free to the world.

Please show me your appreciation for this website, and the community it serves and hosts. Thank you and I look forward to another year!

For those who prefer to send a check through the mail, my mailing address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

P.O. Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530

Thanks!

A client of ours asked us to take a look at his 330GTS. It hadn’t been driven in a while and it wasn’t starting at his garage. From the description, I felt the carburetors were probably gummed up and we could probably get the car started and running well enough to drive the car back to Francois’ shop instead of towing her back. When we got to our client’s garage, we found the accelerator pumps clogged up, so we pulled the tops of the carbs off and cleaned things off a bit. We got the car started and had her running just well enough to drive the 30 minutes back to the shop.

I was nominated to drive the GTS back while Francois got to lead the way in his car. It was a little nerve wracking because the engine wouldn’t idle very well and would occasionally stall at a light or stop sign. This was made even worse when I had stopped on a hill and a car pulled up behind me. I certainly didn’t want to slide back into someone with a stalled Ferrari!

Eventually, the car warmed up enough for the engine to idle fairly well, and I started to enjoy the ride back to the shop. The 330GTS is probably one of my favorite Vintage Ferraris. It’s got a lot going for it: an engine with a lot of torque, a fully independent suspension, good brakes, and a nice 5 speed gear box. All these traits, and a convertible, what’s not to love?

When we got back to the shop, we decided to take all the jets out and clean them a little more thoroughly. This dark gum is what is left when the fuel evaporates inside a carburetor, and it’s the same stuff plugging up the little jet orifices. A good soaking in carburetor cleaner helped get things back in working order, but I still had one more job: Fill the car up with fresh gasoline, and take her out for a nice long drive!